Seminar in Hadronic Physics

Insights into jet quenching within a hybrid strong/weak coupling model

Daniel Pablos

McGill University

The discovery that nuclear matter under extreme temperature conditions behaves as a strongly coupled fluid, challenging traditional perturbative techniques, has opened a rich window of phenomenological applications for holography. By studying the way in which highly energetic excitations are modified by its passage trough the plasma, one gains access to a unique tool capable of testing core assumptions on the nature of this system. With such motivation, we build a model for jet quenching based on the fact that high energy jet dynamics within the QGP involve a wide range of scales, from the high virtuality of the hard scattering to the relatively low temperature of the plasma that interacts with the jet. Facing the impossibility to describe all the physical processes in either the weak or strong coupling regime, we resort to a phenomenological description that applies each kind of physics where it is supposed to be valid. The transparency of the methods applied allows for a careful and systematic analysis of the impact that different effects, such as broadening, medium response or finite resolution have on a comprehensive set of jet and intrajet observables, helping determine the relevant physical mechanisms in the jet/plasma interplay.